WEEK
WEEK-TV, virtual and UHF digital channel 25, is an NBC/ABC/CW+-affiliated television station licensed to Peoria, Illinois, United States and serving the North-Central Illinois television market. The station's studios and transmitter are located on Springfield Road (along I-474) in East Peoria, a section of Groveland Township, Tazewell County. Owned by Quincy Media, it formerly operated and shared its facility with then-ABC affiliate (now Comet owned-and-operated station) WHOI (channel 19, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group) through joint sales and shared services agreements until those agreements were terminated on October 1, 2016. WEEK-TV then took over its ABC and CW+ affiliations permanently on its second and third digital subchannels. History WEEK-TV began transmitting on February 1, 1953, with an analog signal on UHF channel 43. It has always been an NBC affiliate. It was owned and operated by the Oklahoma City-based Oklahoma Publishing Company along with WEEK radio (1350 AM now WOAM) through its broadcasting subsidiary, West Central Broadcasting Company. Edward K. Gaylord was president, and the chairman of the board was United States Senator, former governor of Oklahoma and founder of the Kerr-McGee Corporation Robert S. Kerr. Wayne Lovely, the first chief engineer of WEEK-AM-TV, supervised the construction of the stations' technical facilities and equipment installation in 1953. He remained with the station until 1974. On November 7, 1957, WEEQ-TV in La Salle launched as a full-time satellite of WEEK-TV with the aim of increasing its signal reach. The UHF channel 35 allocation was most recently used for Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) affiliate WWTO-TV, which later broadcast digitally on very high frequency (VHF) channel 10, retaining the virtual channel 35 via PSIP. In 1964, the station switched from channel 43 to channel 25, where it remained until its analog signal shut down on February 17, 2009. The channel 43 allocation was later moved from Peoria to Bloomington and used by the second incarnation of WBLN starting in 1982 (now the Fox affiliate WYZZ-TV). In 1966, Kansas City Southern Industries purchased WEEK-TV and WEEQ-TV from OPUBCO, around the same time it acquired KRCG in Jefferson City, Missouri. The new owner then shut down WEEQ-TV in the early-1970s. In 1985, Kansas City Southern Industries sold both its stations to Price Communications. On October 31, 1988, WEEK-TV and fellow NBC outlet KBJR-TV of Superior, Wisconsin, became the two founding stations of the Granite Broadcasting Corporation. In 1997, WEEK-TV bought the broadcasting license for 98.5 in Eureka, giving it the call sign WEEK-FM and the nickname "Oldies 98.5". Granite Broadcasting divested itself of the radio station, now WPIA, in 1999. WEEK has broadcast exclusively in digital since February 17, 2009. On March 2, 2009, WEEK-TV took over operations of rival WHOI, then owned by Barrington Broadcasting, through joint sales and shared services agreements. This resulted in WHOI closing its longtime studios on North Stewart Street in Creve Coeur and sharing WEEK-TV's East Peoria facility. As a result of the consolidation, all five of Peoria's full-powered commercial television stations are now operated by two entities. Granite-owned CBS affiliate WTVH in Syracuse, New York, (WHOI's original call letters) also saw its operations merge with Barrington-owned NBC affiliate WSTM-TV and low-powered CW affiliate WSTQ-LP the same day. WSTM, however, is the senior partner in the arrangement with WTVH. On February 11, 2014, Quincy-based Quincy Newspapers announced it would acquire WEEK-TV; KBJR-TV; WBNG-TV in Binghamton, New York; and Malara Broadcasting-owned WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from Granite Broadcasting. Quincy initially intended to provide continued services to WHOI, but Sinclair (having just completed its acquisition of Barrington Broadcasting in November 2013) gave notice that the JSA/SSA between WHOI and WEEK-TV, originally set to expire in March 2017, would be terminated within nine months of the completion of Quincy's purchase of WEEK-TV. On September 30, 2015, the FCC approved Quincy's purchase of WEEK, and the sale was completed on November 2, nearly two years after the agreement was announced. Through a separate joint sales agreement, WEEK-TV also controlled the market's MyNetworkTV outlet WAOE through the end of 2014. The station, owned by Four Seasons Broadcasting, was then based out of the Springfield Road studios. For a time, the facility also hosted some internal operations (e.g. programming log maintenance) for WBQD-LP, another Four Seasons-owned MyNetworkTV outlet (now WQAD-DT3). The station was controlled through a local marketing agreement with the Quad Cities' ABC affiliate, WQAD-TV (then owned by Local TV; currently owned by Tribune Broadcasting), maintaining the majority of day-to-day operations in the big three affiliate's studios in Moline, Illinois. Following a retransmission consent dispute, Dish Network dropped WEEK-TV from its lineup on August 29, 2018. By October 12, Quincy had reached a new agreement with Dish wherein the satellite provider would resume carrying WEEK-TV. Subchannels WEEK-DT2 WEEK-DT2 is the ABC-affiliated second digital subchannel of WEEK-TV, broadcasting in 720p high definition on virtual and UHF channel 25.2. History WEEK-DT2 was launched on November 15, 2004, as an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus, a 24-hour weather channel that provides local forecasts for certain areas. In December 2008, after NBC Weather Plus shut down, it affiliated with The Local AccuWeather Channel, and continued to do so until it went silent in 2014, thus ending the subchannel's run as a 24/7 weather affiliate. On July 26, 2016, Quincy Media announced that it had acquired WHOI's ABC and CW affiliations from Sinclair, and would consolidate them onto subchannels of WEEK beginning August 1, 2016. As an aspect of this deal, Quincy-owned WSJV in South Bend similarly relinquished its Fox affiliation to Sinclair-owned WSBT-TV. With that, WEEK-DT2 returned to the air as an ABC affiliate. The ABC and CW subchannels were simulcast on WHOI for 60 days following the consolidation. The JSA between WHOI and WEEK, which had been running since March 2009, was terminated on October 1, 2016, at which point WHOI moved its Comet TV affiliation from its 19.3 subchannel to its main 19.1 channel, thereby taking the 19.2 and 19.3 subchannels dark, and WEEK-DT2 became the sole ABC affiliate for the Peoria television market. Originally, WEEK-DT2 carried the "HOI ABC" branding, but in October 2017 rebranded as "Heart of Illinois ABC". WEEK-DT3 WEEK-DT3 is the CW+-affiliated third digital subchannel of WEEK-TV, broadcasting in 720p high definition on virtual and UHF channel 25.3. WEEK-DT4 WEEK-DT4 is the Ion Television-affiliated fourth digital subchannel of WEEK-TV, broadcasting in standard definition on virtual and UHF channel 25.4. Category:Peoria Category:Bloomington, IL Category:Normal Category:Illinois Category:Channel 25 Category:UHF Category:NBC affiliated stations Category:ABC Affiliates Category:The CW Affiliates Category:Ion Television affiliated stations Category:Quincy Media Category:1953 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1953 Category:NBC Illinois Category:ABC Illinois Category:The CW Illinois Category:Ion Television Illinois Category:Former NBC Weather Plus Affiliates